The other 1917

Premiering at the 2020 Rotterdam film festival, João Nuno Pinto’s MOSQUITO is an provocative, if derivative, odyssey into the heart of colonial darkness

MOSQUITO, Portugal/France/Brazil/Mozambique 2019, 122 minutes. Starring João Nunes Monteiro, João Lagarto, Filipe Duarte, Josefina Massango, Sebastian Jehkul, Ana Magaia and Camané. Directed by João Nuno Pinto; screenplay by Fernanda Polacow and Gonçalo Waddington, from a story by Pinto. Leopardo Filmes/Alfama Films, premiering in the Big Screen Competition at IFFR 2020.

1917? Mosquito, which actually is set in 1917 and is premiering this week at Rotterdam’s IFFR festival, is the real thing.

OK, almost the real thing, since this is also loosely based on real facts; in this case, the true story of director João Nuno Pinto’s grandfather, sent to Africa to fight the Germans on lands the film clearly explains were colonized through violence, death and prejudice.

Zacarias (João Nunes Monteiro), our wannabe hero, belongs elsewhere. He is looking for adventure and glory to forget his desultory status back home in Portugal, so he enlists in the Army to go fight in France in WWI. Instead he’s sent to Africa with “the dregs of the empire” (in the words of a veteran sergeant who’s seen it all), falls prey to malaria and, left behind to get well, decides to walk all the way to the front to join his column.

It’s a journey into the “heart of colonial darkness”, yet again, but one that is invented by screenwriters Fernanda Polacow and Gonçalo Waddington from historical facts, and that is generally forgotten by the film and history books. In fact WWI has been the subject of…